Going by the research statistics brought forth by the Highway Loss Data Institute, the auto-industry-funded nonprofit organization, there has been no substantial fall in the risk of road accidents in states that have banned talking or texting while driving.

After comparing the monthly car collision claims in four states - New York, Washington, D. C., Connecticut, and California – which have banned hand-held mobile phone use while driving, the research found that there has been no change in the accident rates even after the ban went into effect.

The research, suggesting that rather than the imposition of such bans, it would be more beneficial to deal with the problem of distracted drivers on the whole, also found that the car accident trends in California, before and after the cellphone law, are more or so similar to the collision trends of neighboring states like Arizona and Nevada, which do not have the hand-held phone ban in place.

With the research substantiating the critics’ arguments that drivers can still become distracted even while using a hands-free device, Adrian Lund, president of the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety and the data institute, said: “We've all assumed, because we could measure it pretty well, that maybe cellphone use was a bigger distractor than other things, and I think this data shows us that no, it’s not.”